As Saturday at WonderCon 2025 started to wrap up, there was one last big panel: a spotlight on actor and comic book writer David Dastmalchian. Best known for Late Night With the Devil, his work with James Gunn, and also a healthy comic book writing career, the panel promised to put a polka dot on his storied career.
Here’s the official synopsis from WonderCon, and read on for our panel recap, below.
From a struggling theatre actor in Chicago to landing his first film role in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight through three Marvel Ant-Man films and starring as Polka Dot Man in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad,David Dastmalchian has turned his life-long love of comic books into a cinematic career and now a publishing career. With three ongoing comic titles—Count Crowley at Dark Horse, Knights vs Samurai at Image, and The Creature Commandos at DC—Perri Nemiroff (Collider) talks with Dastmalchian about his creative process, behind-the-scenes moments, and the future he is plotting for his company, Good Fiend Films.
Things kicked off with Dastmalchian being asked about what made him fall in love with performing. The first was a live high school production of The Mousetrap. The second was seeing The Muppet Movie. And the third was a Hammer Horror movie, Curse of the Werewolf.
Moving on, he noted that he never thought being an actor was a career path, he wanted to be the “cool coach” who taught theater on the side at a high school. Not helping things, he had a “crippling” battle with his mental health and addiction. He was away from acting for five years, and when he was able to “go to a job and exist,” he thought it was as good as it got. Then a friend told him about a production of Salome, and he was hesitant but did it — and loved it. But the clincher was, if he could pay his bills, he would keep with it.
He took a side-step to jump back and talk about his theater training — and in particular, he called out how he continues to learn and gravitates towards performers he can learn things from and add to his toolbox. His acting technique, he doesn’t think it’s important to feel something, but it is important for you — the audience — to feel like he is feeling something. What he learned in school was all about controlling his body and facial muscles and “tricking” people into thinking he’s feeling things, so it doesn’t matter what’s going on in his brain.
One thing he sucks at, admittedly? Laughing. “It’s like in a social situation when someone fake laughs, you can smell it? Like a fart? It’s the same thing on screen.” He also recalled a time when he was told to “smolder” in a script but just made other people laugh.
Dastmalchian was next asked about an actor he was in sync with immediately and one he was not. He first called out Heath Ledger, who was in the first movie he ever did. “He carried the [sense] of an actor I aspire to, to this day,” Dastmalchian recalled that he was sweet and funny, but when they called action he could switch right into the role, then turn it off — something Dastmalchian was at the time unable to do. Then he mentioned Paul Rudd, who “had the text down pat,” would memorize all the lines, and then “throw it all out the window.”
In case you haven’t figured it out, Dastmalchian’s first screen role was The Dark Knight So how did he end up in it? “Miracle,” Dastmalchian said. He was performing at Chicago SketchFest and got scouted by a casting director who thought he had died. From that, he got a commercial, and then a year later, he got his first audition, for The Dark Knight.
When he got the audition for the bank robber scene, he prepared incessantly, he loved the first movie, loved comics, and he got there, and it was a room with hundreds of people. Turns out the casting director recognized him from the commercial, so he got right in for an audition. He did great, but did too much movement because of his stage background, so the casting director told him, “Take all of this you’re doing with your body, and put it in your eyes.” He auditioned for Christopher Nolan…
…And then he didn’t get the role. He was depressed and cried, and then four months later, he got another, better role, where they would see his face. And it launched his career.
Dastmalchian then talked about the scene, where he was walking down a street where he used to sleep in his car in the alley, or was a few blocks away from his local comic book shop. And that was when he knew he was going to Hollywood.
Much later, he got the call for Oppenheimer, and went to Universal to read the script, came to Nolan’s office, where he was talking to Matt Damon, and expected they would talk about the role. But nope, Nolan just wanted to say hi, and, “You were great as Polka-Dot Man.”
Moving to talk about horror, Dastmalchian lamented that he’s never been cast as a vampire. “I think it is complete and utter bulls**t that I have yet to be one,” he said. He then told a story about working on his will with a guy, who told him he was a writer. Dastmalchian rolled his eyes, and then he mentioned The Demeter, and Dastmalchian was about to do Voyage of the Demeter. Turns out the lawyer was Leslie S. Klinger, who has done annotated versions of everything from Dracula to Watchmen.
Next up, he talked about his role in One Piece as Mr. 3. His son loves One Piece. “I you watch the anime, Mr. 3 has a specific voice… It’s a great voice, and I love it. I wanted to find a bridge between my voice, and his voice on the anime.” Dastmalchian also mentioned he’s very “nasty” in the books, but wanted to make him a sociopath on the show. They built the full-on, working Mr. 3 candelabra for the show.
Then it was time for Q&A. Dastmalchian was asked about Count Crowley from Dark Horse. Volume 3 just came out, with a foreword by Mike Flanagan. He’s got a plan for the next story arc, but is waiting to hear from Dark Horse about it.
Then he was asked about Murderbot, the upcoming show on Apple TV+. “Last night, I was watching episodes,” Dastmalchian said. “It is incredible. It is such a special, weird… I have never really seen anything like it before.” He noted that Alexander Skarsgard is excellent in the show, according to him (Skarsgard plays Murderbot). Later, when asked more about it, he said, “I’m trying to be a good actor, but getting choked by Alexander Skarsgard… It’s pretty dreamy.”
Asked about favorite effects roles, he called out Polka-Dot Man, which had amazing effects, Dune, and also an upcoming role he can’t talk about because it hasn’t been announced, but he is going to be “furry.”
Later he noted that he loved doing motion capture on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and found it freeing. “I would love to do mo-cap, and figure out a way to do Solomon Grundy.” He would also love to do Morbius if they ever brought it back.
And that was it for the panel! #MakeDastmalchianAVampire
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